Magical Season: A Reporter Remembers 1994-95 CU Women's Team
February 15, 2020 | Women's Basketball, Alumni C Club
Former Daily Camera reporter Greg Johnson was the beat writer for the CU women's basketball program in the early and mid-1990s. Johnson is now an associate director of communications for the NCAA.
My first inkling that the 1994-95 Colorado women's basketball season was going to be special was the first time I met Isabelle Fijalkowski in person.
The late David Gilkey, a Boulder Daily Camera photographer at the time, and I had the assignment of putting together a story on the Buffs new center from Clermont-Ferrand, France. She had just arrived on campus, and we were supposed to meet her in the CU women's basketball office in Folsom Field.
David and I wondered if the star recruit, who was granted one year of eligibility due to NCAA rules, was as tall as she was hyped to be. While we waited for her to arrive, we talked ourselves into believing she was maybe around 6-foot-3, and the rest is probably the height most teams list to make their rosters seem more formidable. When Fijalkowski entered the office, we both looked at each other without saying a word. But we knew what each of us was thinking, "She's a legitimate 6-5."
I was entering my fourth year being the Daily Camera's beat writer for the CU women's basketball team. Having been around CU Hall of Fame coach Ceal Barry and her staff, I could feel that their excitement was palpable. They adopted a motto of "Final Four by 40," for Barry, who was going to celebrate a milestone birthday around the time that the Women's Final Four was to be held in Minneapolis that season.
It wasn't an unreasonable goal considering the Buffs played in the NCAA tournament the three previous years, went to two Sweet 16s and shocked the then-defending national champion Stanford Cardinal to reach the West Regional finals in 1993 before succumbing to Sheryl Swoops and Texas Tech.
Heading into the start of preseason practice in the fall of 1994, the biggest question for the Buffs was how were they going to replace the scoring of Jamillah Lang, who averaged 19.2 points a game during her senior season to help lead CU to the Sweet 16.
Once practice started, Barry put her team through the usually disciplined workouts, and it was easy to see this team was going to be a force. Fijalkowski's post moves and shooting touch were undeniable.
The Buffs ran a lot of high-low sets with 6-3 power forward Erin Scholz, who was a great passer and a relentless rebounder. Scholz spent her freshman season feeding perfect bounce passes to Lang, and now she had another standout to feed the ball to.
On the perimeter, Barry had senior point guard Shelley Sheetz to captain the team. Sheetz's competitive drive, steady ballhandling and deadly 3-point shooting were a constant for the three previous seasons, and she ended her career being named a Kodak All-American.
Barry made the decision to tweak the lineup at the shooting guard spot where she made De Celle Thomas the starter. Thomas, the best athlete on the team, had spent her first two years in Boulder playing small forward, where she used her quickness to overcome her 5-8 frame that often led to her having to guard taller players.
With Thomas moving over to the opposite wing, Barry placed 5-11 Jen Terry at small forward. Terry was an unknown going into the season for Buffs fans because she had to redshirt her first season due to tearing an anterior cruciate ligament in one of her knees in high school. Terry gave CU more size at that position and was the ultimate glue player for the Buffs.
If CU needed someone to draw a charge, Terry was there. If the Buffs were in need to gain possession of a loose ball, Terry was the first to the floor. She also gave Barry another lockdown defender on the wing to pair with Thomas.
Off the bench, the Buffs were loaded with Amy Palmer, Raegan Scott and Lauri Weathers.
Palmer was the epitome of the type of players that played in the program in the 1990s. The 5-7 combo guard started 30 games her sophomore year in 1993-94 but accepted her role of subbing in for either Sheetz or Thomas at a moment's notice. She ended the 1994-95 season with a team-leading 59 3-pointers.
Scott, who is currently the head coach at TCU and whose last name is now Pebley, was 6-4 and could play either power forward or center. Scott did every aspect of the game well, but her strength on this team is she gave the Buffs a post player who could stretch the defense by making mid-range shots.
Weathers was a 5-8 dynamo full of energy that could play either wing. She was a tough-minded defender who could run the floor and knock down perimeter shots.
Just in case that wasn't enough, the Buffs also had 6-2 junior Alexandra Slokar to turn to. She added size and gave the team another threat from the 3-point arc.
Knowing that Barry would have her team playing its' signature stifling defense, it was easy to see this would be one of the best teams in the country.
Regular season
The Buffs opened the year with a 72-48 beatdown of Stephen F. Austin. The 24-point margin of victory was something CU fans were going to get used to. During the 30-3 season, the Buffs average margin of victory was 19.4 points.
The routs continued all the way to the Buffs first big test of the season, a road game at fourth-ranked Louisiana Tech. The trip became memorable for me personally after I arrived at the airport in Shreveport, Louisiana.
I was walking to get my rental car for the drive down to Ruston, La., but a few CU fans dressed in their black and gold were already at the counter before me. They said hello to me, and I remember thinking, "Do these people have jobs?" But passion shown by the CU women's basketball fans made my time at the Camera fun. It was my duty to chronicle the news about their favorite team.
CU made their way to Ruston to play in the Lady Techster Classic. After demolishing Northern Illinois 78-49, the Buffs faced Louisiana Tech in the final. The Lady Techsters were the NCAA tournament runners-up in 1994, losing at the buzzer when Charlotte Smith sank a jumper to give North Carolina the national title. They rarely lost at home.
Fijalkowski gave the home team some trouble by scoring 19 points. Scholz registered a double-double with 10 points and 12 rebounds, and Sheetz finished with 12 points in a 77-62 loss.
The Buffs were a competitive bunch so it stung, but you could tell they were going to use the defeat in a tough road environment as something to build on rather than something that would break their spirit.
CU returned to the win column by thumping Wyoming 78-59 in Laramie, before returning home to host the legendary Pat Summitt and the No. 1 Tennessee Lady Vols. My most vivid memory of the game was how loud the Coors Events Center was. I sat courtside at the games in those days, and I literally couldn't hear any squeaks from the player's shoes or the basketballs bouncing on the court during warmup.
It was a constant roar as the teams waged an epic struggle. At one point, Summitt pulled her starting point guard, Michelle Marciniak, from the game to give her a pep talk about controlling Sheetz on the defensive end of the floor.
Eventually, Tennessee was able to pull away late for a 78-72 win. Summitt thanked the Colorado media for making the game an event for women's basketball. When they left Coors Events Center that night, the Buffs were a dejected squad, but little did they know they would go on a program-record 25-game win streak.
The toughest non-conference game before Big Eight play came right after Christmas when the Buffs traveled to Seattle to play in Washington's Husky Classic.
After easily handling Notre Dame 91-70, the Buffs and homestanding Huskies slugged it out possession-by-possession in the championship game of the tournament. It was the type of game where you wouldn't have blamed either team if they stopped to celebrate a made basket as a soccer or ice hockey team would.
With points coming at a premium, Sheetz walked over to Barry during a free throw in the waning minutes and asked her coach, "Do you want me to take it?" Barry answered affirmatively, and instead of running another offensive set into Washington's stingy defense, Sheetz made penetrating moves to the basket to create offense for herself and her teammates. When the final horn sounded, the Buffs were 55-51 winners.
The game was significant because it showed CU could win any style of game.
Running the table
Once Big Eight Conference play began, CU was the favorite to take the title. Having a bullseye on their program was nothing new for this group of players. The three previous seasons saw the Buffs win the conference tournament in 1992, and the regular-season championship in 1993 and 1994.
This time the team wanted to win both trophies in the same season. It became apparent early that they would win the regular-season conference title, but the question was, could they do it with a perfect 14-0 record?
The closest call to ruining the perfect conference record came on the final weekend on the road at Kansas and Kansas State. The Jayhawks and Buffs were the two best programs in the league at the time.
Playing on a Friday night in Allen Fieldhouse the Buffs were in big trouble late, trailing by three points with under five seconds to play. CU needed to go the length of the court and somehow have a miracle finish just to force overtime.
Opportunity came when Palmer was fouled catching an inbounds pass in the backcourt. CU was out of timeouts, but they knew exactly what to do since Barry had gone over situations like this in practice.
Palmer, an 87-percent free-throw shooter, calmly sank the first shot to cut the lead to two points. She missed the second shot on purpose, and Thomas was able to use her athleticism to grab the rebound over the taller Jayhawks. Her follow shot missed, but Fijalkowski corralled the miss and scored before the buzzer to force overtime.
Allen Fieldhouse went silent except for the fired-up Buffs. Using the momentum from the improbable game-tying sequence, the Buffs won 90-81 in overtime. As usual, the Buffs had balanced production with Sheetz scoring 18 points, followed by Fijalkowski with 17. Palmer and Weathers contributed 12 points apiece, and Scholz provided another double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds.
Two days later, the Buffs found themselves in another fight to the finish in Bramlage Coliseum. With Fijalkowski out due to an injury, Scott stepped into the starting lineup against Kansas State. The Buffs needed one more win for a 14-0 Big Eight mark, but the Wildcats, who finished fifth in the league, were primed for the upset.
Sheetz led the Buffs to a hard-fought 77-74 victory by scoring a season-high 26 points. Scholz added 21 points and six rebounds, and Scott finished with 17 and 6. Sheetz looked exhausted during the postgame interview as the weight of trying to be perfect in the conference drained the team mentally.
After recovering for a few days, the Buffs traveled to Salina, Kanas, where their goal was to leave no doubt as to their dominance. CU handed out a series of convincing wins over Iowa State (73-38), Oklahoma State (73-58) and Kansas 61-45. They once again cut down the nets in the Bicentennial Center. However, the Buffs suffered a major loss when Terry tore an ACL early in the tournament final against Kansas.
NCAA Tournament
Losing a starter right before the NCAA tournament was going to be tough for the Buffs. It left you thinking whether it could come back to haunt the team. Weathers was more than capable of taking over the starting spot, but no team wants to have to shuffle the lineup at that point of the season.
The Buffs entered the final phase of their season as the No. 1 seed in the Midwest Regional and ranked No. 2 in the nation behind Geno Auriemma's UConn Huskies, who up to that point had never won a national title.
CU began their run with dominant first- and second-round wins in the Events Center over Holy Cross (83-49) and Missouri State (78-34). The Buffs consistently fed Fijalkowski in the post and she delivered 17 points and 12 rebounds in the first round and 23-10 in the second round to lead the Buffs back to the Sweet 16 for the third year in a row.
CU arrived in Des Moines, Iowa, on a 24-game win streak with visions of taking another trip 3½ hours up I-35 to Minneapolis' Target Center, site of the Women's Final Four.
The Buffs easily handled a veteran fourth-seeded George Washington team 77-61 with Fijalkowski posting her third consecutive NCAA tournament double-double with 17 points and 13 rebounds. Sheetz and Palmer scored 15 and 13 points respectively, and Scott came off the bench to register 10 points and 10 rebounds.
CU was hitting on all cylinders headed into the regional final matchup with third-seeded Georgia, who edged second-seeded North Carolina State 76-74 in the other Midwest Regional semifinal.
This game marked the second time in program history that the Buffs were one step away from the Women's Final Four. But unlike 1993, when they were coming off a stunning upset of Stanford, this edition of the Buffs wasn't just happy to be there. They expected to win. The 25 straight victories on their resume said so.
The challenge against Georgia was formidable. The Bulldogs featured Saudia Roundtree, La'Keisha Frett, Kedra Holland and Tracy Henderson.
The Buffs controlled the game against the more athletic Georgia club by pounding the ball inside to Fijalkowkski. CU's 6-5 center delivered the best game of her one-year career in Boulder by being almost unstoppable in the paint. She finished the game with 35 points on 13-of-16 shooting from the field. Fijalkowski also added nine rebounds and four assists.
Thomas thrived in the athletic game and arguably produced her finest game as a Buff by producing 14 points and 11 rebounds.
The Buffs held a nine-point lead with around four minutes to play when a timeout was called. During the break, Carol Callan, who was the radio analyst and the director of athletics at Fairview High School in those days, and is now the Women's National Team Director for USA Basketball, looked at me and said, "Well, it's looking good so far."
After a second or two, we both turned towards each other and said, "But you know Georgia has one more run left in them."
Unfortunately for the Buffs, it was a crippling run as the Bulldogs went into a full-court pressure mode and eventually edged CU 82-79.
It was a sudden and stunning end to the season. The crushing defeat laid heavily on the hearts of the Buffs as they narrowly missed their goal of sending their coach to the "Final Four by 40."
One of my most vivid memories was the poise and maturity Fijalkowski displayed during the postgame interviews. I can't imagine how she spoke so eloquently in a language that wasn't her native tongue.
Thanks to the Buffs
I covered the Buffs for two more seasons after their epic 1994-95 season. CU made the NCAA tournament both years, reaching the Sweet 16 again in 1997 where they dropped another close game to eventual national champion Tennessee in Iowa City, Iowa.
I look back on those days fondly as I was learning my profession.
A big thank you goes out to Hall of Fame coach Barry, who allowed me to attend her practices anytime I wanted to be there. It was like going to a coaching clinic for free all those years. I've been able to catch up with Barry periodically in my role as an associate director of communications at the NCAA and Champion magazine staff writer.
Colleen Reilly, the women's basketball sports information director, and Kelly Lotito, the women's basketball athletic trainers, did an amazing job supporting the program, and helping this former beat writer do his job.
Another fun part of the job was getting to know the players, and their families. I covered many of them for their entire careers in Boulder and keep up with many of them via social media. They were what Division I sports are supposed to be about. Dedicated athletes who were fiercely competitive at a high level, while also being intelligent students who graduated.
I remember calling many of them after they had verbally committed to attend CU. Palmer answered the telephone at her high school in Louisiana the first time I ever interviewed her. I talked to Scott for the first time when she was a senior in high school in Orem, Utah. Now, she's married with two kids, and the head coach at TCU. The first time I spoke with Fijalkowski, I wasn't sure how much English she spoke and as the phone rang, I was in a panic of what I was going to say. Luckily, the French classes I took in high school came pouring out of the deep recesses of my brain, and I was relieved when I found out she spoke English so well. I think the magic word in the conversation was when I said "Colorado."
The 1994-95 CU women's basketball team was a special group and deserves to be honored for the wonderful ride they allowed all to observe.
Let me be among those to say job well done ladies, and thanks for allowing me to tell your stories over the years.
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